Intimacy in Marriage

 Hello and happy weekend! I hope you had a great week! Well to preface, this post is going to be about marital intimacy... yes, I know this tends to be a taboo topic and can be a very awkward one. And while I want to make it very clear, I have no experience with this at all, there were some good things I learned this week and hope will be enlightening in some way. 

To start off I want to talk about the importance and sacredness of sexual relations and intimacy in marriage. While many consider it a taboo topic to avoid at all costs, this is a topic that should be considered SACRED not SECRET. Sexual relations and intimacy are a part of life, but it is important that it be treated with sacredness and is done within the bonds of matrimony. While this is a topic that most people avoid at all costs and find discomfort with, it is a very important conversation during the engagement period and also a talk that parents should be having with the children, at an appropriate age. I know that it is not a fun conversation for a parent or a child to have, but it can be important to help them understand that it is a sacred thing and should be talked about and treated as such. I know that growing up and going through middle school and high school a lot of kids were very immature about that topic and made a lot of comments that made the whole topic and idea scary to me and something I never wanted to talk or hear about. It was something that I was terrified of and I think that helping teens to understand it through a mature way and being honest about it can help relieve tension about the subject. As mentioned however, it definitely needs to be at an appropriate time and age. 

There is a lot of great blessings that come from saving this kind of intimacy for marriage and there is a reason God intended for it to be saved for marriage. Those who are intimate outside of marriage can find a lot of difficult challenges in the relationship. Women especially can struggle with an unhealthy attachment because they release a hormone called oxytocin, which is an attachment and bonding hormone. If women feel more attached to the man when there is not any sort of commitment such as marriage, then it can make for a more unhealthy relationship between the two. 

Some of the challenges people can see with intimacy in marriage can include: 

• having boundaries with each other
• communication and intimacy being a taboo topic
• learning that sexual satisfaction is not predetermined
• "sacred vs secret" 
• expectations 
• women being more attached 
• women can be more distracted

While there are a lot of challenges that come with this, there are also a lot of opportunities, some of which include: 

• having a sacred experience
• opportunity to communicate 
• taking your time 
• a time for bonding and strengthening the relationship 

Marital intimacy can seem like an overwhelming topic and while it does not come without challenges, there are a lot of beautiful opportunities that come with it. God did not intend for this to be a big scary thing for couples, it is meant to help strengthen relationships and bonds within marriage and it can be a really joyful and sacred experience for a couple. I know that when we choose to follow the way God has laid things out for us, we will find it to be more joyful and see a lot of blessings that come from it.

Thanks for reading this week! 

-Olivia